DEAR MR. FOX

BAD VEGAN has been using mostly styled glamour shots in its promotion. Like the painted over image from one of my cookbooks, in which I look like a coiffed and made-up villain, eating a cash salad on a billboard in LA, with the words “Fame. Fraud. Fugitives.” Well, here’s something different I found in my phone archives, taken for reasons I don’t recall. This, at least, is real. (Plus, Leon! who happens to be wearing a matching facial expression.)

March 27, 2022 

There is controversy over the ending of Bad Vegan. I’ve written something to address that. It’s long. I need to shorten it, and I haven’t had time. The main point is that the call at the end was a staged call, recorded for the documentary, a small slice of which was misused to represent something that’s the opposite of true. I provide more detail in what I’ve written, which I will share soon, I hope.

For now, and for better or worse, I’ve decided to post a letter I wrote in 2016 to Mr. Fox. (Anthony Strangis). It was one of those letters you write when you’re angry, simply to get the feelings out of your head, with no intention to send it. I wrote it during the weeks after I was out on bail, while riding the subway—adding more over the course of many subway rides. At the time I wrote it, so much evidence had yet to turn up, all in my favor, yet even then I’d thought… surely I’d not be sent back to jail. This wasn’t a privilege thing, it’s just that I naively thought one needed to have intent to commit crimes. It seemed logical and obvious that I wouldn’t have willingly destroyed my own life and hurt so many people I cared about for no benefit. It made no sense. Yet, eventually, I did go back to jail. And, in a lot of ways, I’m glad for that experience; I want to somehow, one day, be a useful advocate for bail reform. Seeing the effects of it on people’s lives up close made me want to do something. Anyway. 

This letter is among the first bits of content I sent to director Chris Smith when he was considering this project. This letter had turned out to be a useful summary of what happened. Most of what I wrote here—if not all of it—would eventually be corroborated by loads of source materials. 

I’ve been advised to not post things on my site—to go to this or that media outlet instead. Or, I’ve been told it could be giving too much away when I’ve already written most of a book draft that I’d like to publish one day. Or, that I could sound too crazy and angry. It’s too risky, I’m told. But oh well. What I want now is just to put my own words out there—words that I hope will help some people feel less alone with their own nightmares, or even maybe help someone gather the strength to escape one. And for me, these words may help some people better understand the truth of what happened, how things were, and how I feel about that man. In the article I’ve written but not finished yet, I describe the circumstances of why I was in touch with “Mr. Fox” after he was released from jail. The reasons were related to my and Leon’s safety, and they were strategic. Later, it was specifically to gather material for Bad Vegan. Those calls were difficult to make. 

Finally, apologies for all my fat insults (in the letter below). I am not the kind of person who would ever shame someone in that way. Not ever. But this is obviously different. Any way I could lash out at Mr. Fox I would, and his fatness—which he claimed was intentional as some kind of test of my loyalty—was a way I could insult him. 

I do plan to post that other essay, soon. I’m grateful for all the kindness and good wishes that help drown out the other stuff. I’d expected to be called stupid and/or crazy, but wasn’t quite prepared for so much of the lock-her-up sentiment. I’m still confused as to what people think I got away with. My words here—directed at Mr. Fox—are angry, and sometimes crude, but they’re real. And I hope they’re useful. 

Thank you. 

WRITTEN SUMMER OF 2016, in Notes app on iPhone, while riding the subway

Dear Mr. Fox,

Why? Why why WHY? How could you? I need to know. I’m afraid I’ll never know. And I’m pretty sure I won’t ever know. Also, I will never send this, of course. Or, maybe one day I will. I know it won’t matter. Either way, I have to write this. I can’t help writing this. I can’t help wanting you to know how things are for me now. Now that it’s over, and everything’s gone. You won, you destroyed me. I really wish I knew why. Can I at least have that?

Everything is gone – the restaurant, the brand, my home, my work, my employees, my customers, even all my things: clothes, papers, files, photos, everything. Also, my integrity. And scariest of all for me: my independence. 

All that was lost has been replaced by awful things that feel really bad. I’m  grossly humiliated both publicly and privately. Opening the door and letting you in, that was my fault. I did that. My Mom (what you did to my mom!!) and so many other good people, and my own employees, got hurt… because of me. That’s on me. I have to live with that. Can you imagine how that feels? No, you can’t. Shame and responsibility are foreign concepts to you. 

Lately, some well-meaning people have said to me—maybe in a desperate attempt to find some kind of positive spin—Well, it’s a clean slate now!  What? Are you serious? It’s not a clean slate. It’s a horrifically messy slate. It’s a legal, tax, logistical fuckfest of a slate. I exist under a massive pile of debt. When you found me, I had debt, but it was manageable, and, importantly, I had assets and a future and promise. I had so much goodwill, built up over years. I had people in it with me that were working hard for our future. Now that’s gone. Replaced by a massive elephant of debt and destruction, sitting on top of me. Because of you.

So much of what I now owe is to good people—people who thought they were helping me, that believed in me. Now that’s all on me. Along with the shame. I have to carry all of this now alone. How do I explain that a big fat guy convinced me nothing is real. No one understands that. No one understands any of it. I don’t understand most of it. You did this on purpose. WHY?

People are asking me and I don’t know how to answer, things like: I don’t get it, why didn’t you call the police? And even better: How could you have been so stupid? That’s a favorite. 

How do I explain? Do I tell them what you told me, over and over, for YEARS? Don't worry baby, it'll all be like a bad dream. You'll wake up and everything will be back like before, except better. That was your line. Your cruel and awful lie. Meanwhile sucking me dry. Berating me. Making me do awful shit. Making me humiliate myself to you and others, now the world. For what? What did you get out of all this?

For years with you in my life I woke up every single day into a nightmare of fear and dread. Except back then, you were in charge, and at least I had hope. Never mind that it was false hope. You’d look straight into my eyes so intensely—with those big brown bovine orbs—telling me it was all going to be more than okay. Telling me to hang on. I was your tiny blonde human, your TBH, chosen by you, doing what you told me to do, hanging on for promised relief. That hope is gone. And turns out, it was never even there at all. Everything is gone. Now it’s a different nightmare, but at least you’re not here. At least you’re gone. 

You claimed to be my savior, temporarily stuck in your expanding smelly fat “meat suit” rescuing me from my private pain and suffering. Giving me my power back. I was being put through hell by you, so that I could be untethered from all that had been holding me back—fully empowered to grow the Duck brand as big as it was meant to be and change the world. All the projects I wanted to do, all of it and more I could do. I would change the world, you said. It’s what I was meant to do, you said. And I would do it with everlasting youth and Leon by my side, forever. I was born for this, you told me. I was built for it. And I deserved to never again need to answer to anyone, or to cower, bow down, humiliate myself, beg for anything, or put up with anyone mistreating me ever again. I was too good for that, you told me. You believed in me, you said. You saw me. You saw where I was hurting, who had hurt me, what made me sad and frustrated, and what I wanted. And it turns out, everything you told me was just a bunch of words put in a particular order that you knew I so badly wanted to hear. Just words. Lies, that you knew would make me drunk with false hope, lies I’d hungrily swallow down like a starved stray cat. 

You figured me out—what would work on me. You reeled me in, then got me trapped by borrowing money you’d promise to repay. Only a little at first, but that was the hook. I wanted to be repaid, so I’d let you back in. I’d let you back into my home when I’d resolved to have nothing to do with you again because you were telling me you had cash to pay me back. Then somehow you’d pull some insane mind-fuckery and would end up borrowing more. How that happened, I don’t even know. Why did I give you more? How did that happen? How did you do that? And I can’t go back and figure it out since you deleted our entire g-mail history and took my old phones. 

I guess over all this time you slowly did your thing, convincing me of weird shit, making me believe things, like the idea that you could, in one move, erase all my troubles, repay all the debts from my past, including those left over from Matthew and what I still owed Jeffrey for the restaurant. On top of that, I’d be fully independent—I’d no longer have to court shitty new investors that didn’t share my vision, or worry about how my brand could be compromised or ruined by the wrong partner, or that it might get taken out from under me like it almost was that one time. I’d be able to do all the things I wanted to do: run my amazing company independently, overpay my staff if I want, let them wear whatever they want, retain all of our character and integrity. I could execute on all those projects I’d dreamed up. All the things I felt in my bones I was meant to do, all of it. You knew I felt that way, and so you knew it would be hard for me to turn away from the idea that maybe you were legit and that suddenly, all burdens would be lifted and I’d be free to make my dreams real. You said I was strong and deserving. And for some reason, I ate that shit up. And that was just the start. 

To even summarize all the fucked up things you told me, and put me through, and convinced me to do, over years, would require a book. I don’t have time for that because I have to figure out how to keep myself from going to jail because of you, on top of dealing with everything else, all while living in at my sister’s house and babysitting and cleaning and trying to make myself less of an imposition. And I have to face people. I don’t know how to face people.

I’m writing this on the subway. I take the subway every day and even late at night, speeding through the deep underground tunnels. Remember how you forbade me from taking the subway? I was not allowed to take the subway. As if it was beneath me (pun!). I was too special to take any chances or risks with my safety, being your precious and valuable tiny blonde human. Well now it's my only option. I’ve always been fine riding the subway, aside from the claustrophobic terror of being stuck down here, or of being on that one car on which someone decides to detonate a bomb which would not kill me (for that would be a relief) but would just tear off my limbs. The usual fears. So here I am, on the train now, wondering… why. Why did you do this to me? 

You always despised that I’d always had to answer to men who had power over me, or had to go to men when I needed something. Sometimes, ones who’d offer me whatever it is I may need for who-knows-what in return. Yuck. Well guess what? That shit goes on. I don’t have options anymore. Way back before you fucked up my life at least I had options. If I really wanted or needed to, I could tell anyone to fuck off. I could do that if I needed to, and things would be okay. Because then I still had a valuable brand, and assets, both tangible and intangible. Goodwill. Now I don't because it’s all destroyed and I have no home, and the biggest mountain of debt and legal bills, thank you so much for all of this. Really. 

The list of horrors continues, because turns out it’s not just me you fucked over. My MOM!?!? I finally sat and read through all the emails between the two of you, while trying not to puke all over them, or carve my eyes out with a paring knife. Something, anything to make this nightmare end. That’s the feeling I live with on a daily basis. As I did before but then I was clinging to the belief that salvation was just around the corner. Just do this ONE more thing, you’d say. Your final task. That word: task. I fucking hate that word now. 

Thank god my mom didn’t delete those emails despite your explicit instructions to her to delete them. I saw the total amounts. Holy fucking shit. Imagine how I felt finding that out. My Mom. My thrifty, not-remotely-wealthy mom. How could you? 400K!?!?!? All the promises to her, not unlike the promises to me, just less crazy. Stringing her along too. Pulling that carrot just out of reach every time she sent you more money, so it got so deep there was no turning back. Making her feel fear and panic—I know how that feels. All of this ultimately because I let you, a fat miserable fuck, into my life, so it’s my fault she suffered your mind-fucking too and is now in debt too when she should be retiring. It feels like my fault. And I read your emails telling her I’m on all kinds of medication, having crazy breakdowns. What the fuck. 

Speaking of telling people I'm crazy (making our way down the seemingly never-ending list of shit you did), the e-mails I found in my sent folder? What the fuck?? It took me two days of verifications with google to get back into my own g-mail account, the one you controlled. And what do I find? First, you deleted every single email between me and your own shitty Shane Fox e-mail. Oh gosh I wonder why. But you left one—one left behind written to me by you where you wrote: sorry I tried to help you, gave you all I had, sorry it didn’t work out. Um, OKAY. Right. What the fuck was that. Like, blatantly left there for some investigator to find and read and conclude: Ahhh, see it’s right here, he was just trying to help her. He’s off the hook! As if you knew this would or might happen. You knew. 

Then. I click into my “sent” folder and reading the emails I found made me wish for death right then and there, on the spot. Like, kill me now. Again, that’s pretty much what I feel all the time. Anyway. What you wrote to Jeffrey Chodorow? Alec fucking Baldwin? Alec!? Begging Alec for a few thousand dollars as ME? Writing all that shitty and beyond humiliating stuff from MY email, so these people think they’re talking to me? And how do you suppose I appear now trying to explain any of this to them? You think they believe me? I sound like an asshole saying, that wasn't me!!  And all the others there, so many people you wrote to as me. Even my own brother who wrote me a beautiful heartfelt e-mail gets a shitty short reply from me (you) and then gets to spend a full year thinking that that shitty short reply you wrote as me was indeed from ME? That one broke my heart. I could go on and on about those mails. Fucking beyond humiliating. 

Those trips you sent me on? What the fuck was that all about? Why send me to Rome all by myself for ten days? What was the purpose? Meanwhile, I had to beg and scramble and freak out to borrow money, again. And I did it. I borrowed money from the nicest person ever, at the last minute, to cover payroll, because of course you’d made me send you the money that was there before. When people ask me why, I can’t explain. Because I don’t know. I can’t even wrap my brain around how fucked up this was. Me, all the way in Rome, having heart-failure in my hotel room, talking to the payroll company, getting documents scanned and signed with the help of the flustered Italian hotel staff who weren’t really comprehending my urgency. So why? What was the point of my being in Rome? You’d convinced me I was being sent there to “finish this out.” And that I’d finally meet your (imaginary) brother. But no. I didn’t. I flew home. And you picked me up and wouldn’t let me go back home. I never set foot in my apartment again. You installed me in that creepy dark dump of a dungeon on 28th Street. Why? So I couldn’t kick you out? You had to keep me confined, in your control. And you had Nazim bring my stuff and put the rest in storage, all while not allowing me to set foot back in there. 

Onward to the grossest part. Thinking back now, I suppose you concocted this fucked up routine because it was the only way I’d have sex with you, while you got fatter and fatter. Your stinky fat meat suit. Fucking gross. So much I can’t remember but unfortunately I remember that first time, back at that shit-hole dump of a dark and awful apartment you made me move into—you said you had to do it, and it would be only one time. I remember being afraid of you in a different way that night. I remember very well thinking afterwards, well, now I kind of, sort of, know how people who are raped feel. Now I have an idea of what that feels like. I remember the way you pushed me and ordered me around—purposely making me humiliate myself, like you were staging some dark fucked up porn film. At least you had the mercy to blindfold me, but it only made it more surreal. It didn’t lessen the violation and pain of being fucked when you’re humiliated and afraid. Not to mention, dry as a fucking stale baguette down there. That hurt, physically and otherwise. It hurt in all kinds of ways. All of that I wish I could forget. You fat pile of shit. 

You said you were sorry afterwards, that it was necessary. You said you hated to do it (ok right). You said I wouldn’t understand, that it was as if I was being cleansed of baggage—like it was something supposedly necessary you had to do, for me. Some bizarre twisted and dark ritual to purge me of my demons. For me! Gross. And of course it wasn’t just that one time. Because when did anything you promise to never do again actually not happen again? Ugh. Fucking fuck. So how many more times was it? Fifty? Eighty? All of this while people are thinking I’m “on the run” like we’re Bonnie and fucking Clyde. Later your rationalizations got more creative. You said you needed my "energy" like you were some kind of vampire, except instead of feeding on my blood you needed my other bodily fluids (yuck) and to blow your rancid load somewhere on me, or in my mouth (puke). And, as always, you said that if I got mad or upset it would cause problems. If I have an angry outburst, it would set us back—it would hurt me most. I would reveal myself to be “out of control of my emotions.” The more I stoically took what you put me through, and obeyed and endured, the sooner it would all be over. So you said.

The worst part was your smell. You’d shower first like you were doing me a fucking favor by showering first. Oh thanks. Except it didn’t really matter. Even if you just got out of the shower you were still rancid smelling. No, it wasn't your fucking un-laundered jeans that made you stink, it was you. You smell like death. Like a rotting dead fish. OH! Even better was when you shaved yourself! Then said you did it for me! OH, how thoughtful and considerate: grooming yourself before you mouth-rape me. Disgusting. Now on top of it all I’m getting stabbed in the face with your spiky stubble. Your flabby and smelly goddamn cactus balls in my face while I’m gagging and crying. Fuck you.

Was it fun to watch me cry? Did that get you off? Gratify your rotted and dark soul? 

The only reason I don't kill myself is because then you win. And my father needs his bail money back. Someone (me) needs to earn money for my mom and all those people—my investors, employees, etc—who believed in me and all that was being created and its potential. Someone (ME!) has to make that right. Can you? Oh that's right, no you can't, because you're a fat slob good only at playing Call of Duty and being fat. Fuck you. 

The other reason I can't kill myself is because of the stories you told me which still linger in my brain. Specifically the one about how people who take their own lives get their souls get stuck in purgatory? Forever hell. That sounds great, more torture. Yeah, no thanks. I'm not taking the chance that you actually told me something true, for once. 

I remember telling you about that time so long ago when you-know-who said to me, about the restaurant, "I'll see to it this place burns to the ground before I let you have it."  He said that. And I thought to myself, I’ll be in it. Because I would fight with my life for that place. And you knew that, and used it against me. You used everything I ever told you against me. I told you about all that person did to me, and you acted as if you were here to avenge those wrongs, defend my honor, to see to it I come out on top of the world. Except now you make what he did seem like small fucking potatoes. Fucking tiny little fingerling potatoes. 

So here I sit on the subway again, another day, typing this shit because it’s all I can think about on these long rides into the city. And wondering why. And is it really all gone? You destroyed it all, but worse. It’s like you convinced a mother she could cure her child’s disease by holding him under the magical water you offered, so she holds him under the magical water like you said to do, and now he’s drowned and dead. Her child is dead, and she’s being blamed for it. For destroying what she loved most. Am I being melodramatic? I don’t know but that’s how it feels. That place and that brand were everything to me. They were my purpose. They were my reason for existing. 

Imagine how I felt reading what the reporters turned up about your ex-wife Stacy. The one you said was insane and evil, blah blah. Well, of course she’s not. Of course she seems nice. She and I could probably drink three bottles of wine and talk about you all night. Compare awful notes. All the similarities in the fucked up stories you told us. And then inevitably we’d start thinking back about the good parts and what was up with all that. You were funny. You were so fucking funny sometimes. And so smart. And you could charm anyone, get anyone to do anything. You said you’d protect us. Blah fucking blah blah. Anyway, so you really just up and left them? You left a fucking child? You fucking monster! 

That makes me wonder: Why couldn’t you have done that to me too? Just left. Once you’d drained me and there was nothing left to get, but before taking me away. You’d already got millions, that was done. But at least before you took me away I still had my business/brand intact, having just worked my ass off to get it re-open. Finally. I got that done. The restaurant was alive, and I could have kept it going. But you couldn’t let me have that. Why take me away? Why drag me around the country? I don’t get it. And now you’re sitting in Rikers, and I’m fighting for my freedom with my father’s money that he doesn’t have to spare paying my legal bills. My hard working father. Fuck you forever. Nothing makes sense. 

Why why why did I believe—or mostly believe, or just not not believe—the truly weird shit you told me. Like, how you said you can tell who is good and who is bad with your supersonic godly powers. Some people are red shirts, some are blue shirts. You must think I'm the biggest fool of all time, while you told me these weird stories and I didn’t kick you out for good, no matter how much it cost me. 

Is it funny what you did to me? Are you sitting there laughing at me? Except what did you get out of it? That’s what I don’t understand. You’re in jail now. I'd be relieved if it turned out you stashed millions somewhere because at least that would make sense. And then I could just maybe get something back, and pay people back. But you didn’t. All that money you got out of me is gone and for nearly a miserable fucking year you dragged me across and around the country. Why didn’t you just dump me somewhere and go get on a plane to Mexico? At least that would make more sense than dragging me around on that roadtrip from hell. For what? What was the end game?

I’ll never recover anything from you. Instead anything and everything I might earn from future hard work will all go to repay your damage. You didn’t just shit on me. You had projectile diarrhea, and it splattered far and wide, hitting all the people I care about. And then you left. And it’s my fault. And I’m alone to figure out how to clean it all up. 

Every time you ordered me to find money to send you a wire you said this was it, the final task and we're done. Just get this one last bit and it will all be over. You’ll be free. Finally. Clouds part, heavens open, rainbows and unicorns everywhere, and Leon lives forever with me, world saved. And all the people, the good people, you promised that they and their kids would be repaid and taken care of and given special “protection” for their inconvenience. Like you were some kind of God. UGH.

How the fuck will anyone understand? That I believed that. How will they not look at me like I’m off-my-rocker, spilled-marbles, certifiably nuts? What do I do? How do I get through this? Do I even? What. Do. I Do? Tell me. I need you to help me. You’re gone. I’m alone. Again. You said you were taking care of everything. That’s what you promised me. Over and over. Now what. 

I’m back on the subway again. Another day trekking into the city for gut wrenching conversations with people who reasonably have a really hard time understanding how this happened. How do I explain any of this totally weird shit to anyone. How do I help people understand. The good people you e-mailed who sent money over, thinking it was for me.

Every time I’m on these subway rides I end up crying. Because there’s nothing to do but sit here and think about everything that happened. Listening to music on the iPhone that my sister had to buy for me. Using the Spotify that Leo is paying for on his credit card. Because see how DEPENDENT I am on everyone else for every little thing? Everything, all my stuff, is gone. You put everything from my old place into that storage facility, then even with all the money you took, you couldn’t pay the fucking storage bill? So it’s all gone!? 

Remember Anthony? My homeless friend that you hated, because he looked out for me? He offered me $150 cash that he has. This is how things are now. Later today a generous friend might buy me a new Macbook, just because I need it. Because I have NOTHING. Zilch. 

To even attempt to describe the humiliation I feel would be futile because words aren't sufficient. And I'm so incredibly afraid of anyone and everyone leaving me now. Who can I rely on now? People say they'll help me, and then I don't hear from them. I worry everyone will abandon me. Even my lawyers, I get scared they'll stop working, I'll stop being a priority for them, they'll stop caring. I'm afraid of all that and it hurts so much. I’m alone. 

I wonder if you could even begin to know how miserable I am almost every day when I don't have something to distract me, or even when I do. I may have been depressed and unhappy and feeling stuck when you found me and identified me as good prey, but at least then I had a home, my own comfortable office, my own bed, Leon with me, my business and the restaurant and everyone in it. And I had options! I had so many options. I also had over half a million dollars in the company’s fucking bank when you came around. Cash on hand for the business. I was chipping away at the big Chodorow debt, and I got to write him that check for $100K that I was so proud of. I got to walk into his office and hand him that check, my first very big payment towards the restaurant’s independence and making good on a deal. And meanwhile, I could still buy what I needed for myself. Take a vacation if I needed one. I could buy someone a gift, or take someone to lunch, and purchase my own food, or pick out a new summer dress if I wanted. And still, I was so fucking careful with money. But what I needed I could do. I could go to the doctor, dentist, or see a shrink. I could go get a massage, or get my hair done if I wanted. I could afford dumb laser treatments that I badly want to feel less old and wrinkly. I could walk to the greenmarket in Union Square and buy all the beautiful greens and fruit I wanted. I had options. Now I have none of that, not even a home. It's all gone. And people treat me weird. I'm the "Vegan Bernie Madoff” according to all the press. How the fuck do you think that feels? Knowing that you did this to me, took it all away, ruined my Mom too. You with your promises and directives, ordering me around, yelling at me all the time, reprimanding me, making me fucking terrified of you. You did this to me. And I can't even explain it—that I’m no Bernie Madoff—because I'm not allowed to talk to the press. Even if I could, or when the time comes that I’m allowed to explain, how do you think it looks saying that all this happened because a fat fuck appeared out of nowhere, slid into my life, and promised me the whole world. And that, for some inexplicable reason, I believed him. 

You’d always remind me of all the things you knew I so badly wanted to do, telling me that very soon I could do all of them and more. Expand the brand. Get people, and kids, eating healthier. Produce a world-changing documentary. Build a hotel. Install a giant Duck cookie factory in Detroit, in a huge building I would buy. I could pay Ilze's entire mortgage you said. I so badly wanted to quietly pay off Chelsey's student loans. Send Eloy into blissful retirement after a life of hard work washing the restaurant’s dishes. Stuff like that. 

I can't do this. I can't face this anymore. You have no idea what I had to do today, sitting in a brightly lit conference room with my lawyer, facing a bunch of people, and answering very direct questions about exactly what and how you did to me what you did. It was a Manhattan DA, meeting with me to see if there was enough to press charges against you, at least for this one part of what you did. It was something. It wasn’t my idea. I already know enough to know there’s no case based on something that’s just my word against yours. But my lawyer wanted to explore it anyway. So there I was, answering questions about all about the gross sex stuff. In detail. When you made me do those things, they asked me to describe where were your hands when you shoved your disgusting rank parts in my face. Did you push my head? Did you pull my hair? Did I protest beyond crying? Except they used the real words. As in, did he ejaculate when he put his penis in your mouth? Gross! Beyond fucking gross and humiliating. 

These officials asked me if I ever resisted. Did I fight back? Did I try to get away? I was trying to explain to them how you told me I had to get through it, how I couldn't get mad or upset. I wasn’t allowed to resist. So usually I would get through it. But occasionally I'd snap. I explained to the woman asking questions that it was kind of like if she was periodically forced to sit down and eat a bowl of cockroaches, and wasn’t allowed to get upset or mad, or react. She just had to do it, finish it, get it over with. Or else bad things would happen. Worse things. So, I explained to her how—knowing it must be done, apparently—you try to just get it over with, and do your best to put your mind somewhere else and not think about what’s actually happening, you shut down. And usually get through it. But occasionally you just can't take it, and you snap, and spit out the disgusting cockroaches and hurl the bowl across the room and freak out. 

So, as I explained to them, I did occasionally freak out, and hit and kicked you, and then you’d stop, because, I realize now, you were afraid of me yelling in any of these hotels. Because someone might hear me scream and yell. Then someone would come. Someone might come. What then?

I don't understand. How this happened. How could you do this. How did I ever believe you. Why am I being put through this. I can't do this anymore. I don't want to live in Bay Ridge with Ilze and her husband. I want my own home. I need to be alone. I want back everything you took from me, and my mom, and everyone else. Including the time. And the time I missed out on with Leon. And my reputation. And friends. And all my stuff. I feel like it's over. Game over. I can't do this anymore. 

Why is this happening. I wonder that all day every day. Who did this? You? Or were you… maybe… sent to destroy me on behalf of someone or something. That’s the weird shit I think about. I want to know. Because I want to know, do I keep fighting? Or will I just work my ass off and miraculously get through this shit and finally come back and restart something…  only to be taken down again. Or even worse, will I just struggle and keep hurting, trying to rebuild something but never come back at all? Is there any point in trying? I'd rather just lay down and die now. 

No longer do I worry about walking late alone at night. Way back in the past I’d worry. What if someone attacks me, rapes me, murders me? I don't know. I just don't care anymore because what do I have to lose? I don’t care anymore. Fuck it. I remember so long ago I used to always feel paranoid on the subway platform. Anytime a train was coming I'd hang back against the wall, or casually hug a pole. Because the idea of getting pushed in front of an ongoing train was terrifying. And not an irrational fear because that shit happens. Anyway. Now it’s different. Now I can just freely stand where I want, up close to the edge of the platform as the train comes whooshing towards me and all the people. Because go ahead crazy person, go ahead and push me. You'd be doing me a favor. It wouldn't be so bad at all. It would be a relief. 

Sent from my iPhone